Wednesday, January 17, 2007

An announcement, which we'll make in more detail later, and have hinted about: OMW is indeed going on hiatus sometime this week.

During our hiatus, we'll continue to pass along major local media news, like station sales, format changes and major changes involving on-air personalities (firings, departures, moves, etc.). But we won't publish daily until our return. We'll explain it all in the "Hiatus" message about to be posted, but until then...

WSPD GETS T-R-O: A Lucas County judge has granted a temporary restraining order against the office of Toledo mayor Carty Finkbeiner - requiring the mayor's office to keep Clear Channel talk WSPD/1370 in the information loop.

The station sought the order after a long public battle with Finkbeiner's office, which has prompted city officials to shut out WSPD from press conferences and other media information avenues.

The battle came to a head last week, in an item we reported below...where a door nearly broke at City Hall when a mayoral aide tried to hold back all but one WSPD staff member trying to get into a press conference.

WSPD officials say they hope the temporary order becomes permanent. We're predicting that detente will finally come to the relationship, as both sides have "made their points", as it were...

We're particularly interested, as OMW was the very first source nationwide to report a split between Ramsey and Salem. The Nashville-based talker ended his relationship with the company over Salem's request for him to pay for his airtime on the company's talk and Christian talk/teaching outlets.

Ramsey's people told an OMW reader that they do not pay for airtime, so the program was allowed to be taken off WHK sister station WHKW/1220 and other Salem stations, including WHKW simulcaster WHKZ/1440 Warren-Youngstown, and WRFD/880 in the Columbus market.

At this point, the Saturday evening Ramsey airing is not on the WHK website schedule, and we don't know if it's unpaid filler or paid programming. But unlike in other markets, Ramsey has yet to find a new Cleveland market outlet to take his program...

It's a return to the building for Murray. WHIO operations manager Nick Roberts tells OMW that she was a co-anchor on the station's "Miami Valley Morning News" in the late 1990's.

WHIO also adds news anchor fill-in Jason Michaels as permanent midday anchor. Michaels continues as APD for sister station "95.3 The Eagle", and as evening personality on sister country "K99.1"...

MAXWELL'S SIGHTS ON O&A: Every once in a while, talk radio personalities deal in "inside baseball"...talk about radio, their competition and the like that we here at OMW call "Manna From Heaven".

We didn't hear it ourselves, but an OMW reader tips us off to some of this "inside" talk from Clear Channel rock WMMS/100.7 afternoon host Maxwell.

Though Maxwell does play music, he's really more of a talk personality...and apparently sees talk radio hosts as his direct competitors.

Our reader tells us Maxwell crowed about good ratings in the last ratings period, though he noted that he couldn't go into much more detail due to the various rules regarding Arbitron's surveying.

But he did say, according to our reader, that he beat both sister talk WTAM/1100 afternoon eating machine Mike Trivisonno and CBS Radio alt-rock/talk syndicated afternoon team "Opie and Anthony". (UPDATE 7:25 PM 1/17/07: We'd like to clarify this...upon reading our reader's E-Mail, we were told it "appeared" Maxwell said he beat both Triv and O&A - from the conversation on the air. Our apologies for the misread.)

Ratings being what they are, and details being scarce, we don't know what demographic Maxwell was talking about.

But when a caller prompted Maxwell to talk about Triv, the WMMS PM driver reportedly responded:

That's not even what we were worried about. To be honest, it was Opie and Anthony. They come back in here after ruling the airwaves with an iron fist.

He's talking, of course, about O&A's initial stint in Cleveland, via once and current affiliate "92-3 K-Rock". We haven't heard if they're tearing up the ratings again, after doing well enough before to put a scare into Triv.

If any of our assembled readers can give us private information about this, we'd appreciate it. Posting it in a comment is one thing, but we really need to know WHO is telling us this, and if they have any credibility.

As always, OMW respects the privacy of our sources - we could tell you who, but it'd break that chain, after all...and we'll probably still be around here and updating through the end of the week at any rate...

22 comments:

It might be an advantage to one of the companies to put Dave Ramsey on a HD signal. An advice channel,along with other specialty services, "narrowcasting" to use another description, in my opinion would help sell HD to the public.

I can definitively say that he did not beat Trivisonno in Persons 12+, Persons 25-54, or Men 25-54.

As for O&A... call it a dead heat. XRK was ahead Persons 25-54, while MMS won Men 25-54 and Persons 12+. In all three cases, the difference between MMS and XRK were 1/10 of a rating point or less.

I wouldn't doubt that Maxwell may have scored some victories in the 18-34 sector, but that isn't the "money" demo. All-in-all a very positive book for Maxwell, but he ought to check facts before opening mouth.

The current Toledo Free Press (now online) has a story on the court order, editorials from Brian Wilson and Brian Schwartz (the Mayor's Public Information Officer), and a piece from the reporter Kevin Milliken about the day he was shut out.

I can tell you that on Monday, 1420 started airing the Dave Ramsey show at 12:00 noon, and then after the show introduction, midway through the 1st phone call, the show cut to dead air, then they played a tape stating that the station was experimenting technical difficulty. After about 5 minutes, the station came back on the air, but was not airing Dave Ramsey but their regular show that is normally in that time slot (sorry, didn't catch his name).

i always hate when triv talks about the "money demo" and then he talks about how many books he has been number 1 .

the number 1 radio show/personality is the one who can get THE MOST LISTENERS. if you have a good show, the people will come. i also think that all talk rating say alot more about the dj than the music stations. people are not going to listen to maxwell, or who ever the dj is if they hate the music on that station.

we all know right now that hit stations/r and b score big with the youngsters, and mix stations get solid ratings for the soccer moms and dads.

Wow... triv is now at #5. He's dropping like meatball in chicken soup. Doesn't that make 3 consecutive books not being #1. Wonder if cheap channel will replace the big one with a cheaper version (like "Francine")? He's a parrot of Triv anyway and probably makes a lot less.

WMJI not listed among Top 5 P25-54? Not shocking considering the talent and the music. Scott Howitt could come back and in one book be #1.

And to be technical... "oldies" is NOT a 25-54 format. It's a 35-64 with a core of 45-54. If an "oldies" station does well 25-54 that's icing on the cake. WMJI, with the "Lanigan factor" has always prospered P25-54. With the format aging... and the station on the whole no longer having the "spark" that it had years ago under Gorman and Sanders, it's really been Lanigan carrying the station the last 3-4 years. And now even his influence doesn't translate to later in the day.

I believe CC Cleveland is still looking for a PD for WGAR, who would also then get WMJI (as Meg Stevens had). Hopefully whomever they hire has some "showbiz" in them to KEEP WMJI at the top.

It seems rather unlikely that 14K is planning to replace Dennis Prager (weekdays noon to 3 pm) with Dave Ramsey. I would bet that Ransey was heard in that slot only because of the technical difficulty.

I listen to WMJI for Lanigan but they need to do something about the music, hearing the same 300-400 songs over and over is nuts. And is someone at Clear Channel related to The Stampeders out of Calgary, Canada? I mean, it seems like I hear "Sweet City Woman" at least once every single day. Give it a rest, play something else, play anything else and add some more songs to the playlist!

Agree with the above poster...why do stations (particularly Oldies, where a W-I-D-E variety is available and appreciated) keep recycling the same songs over and over and over? He's got a problem with Sweet City Woman. I cringe and turn the channel immediately upon every replay of Pretty Woman!! UGGHH.

Also, I didn't think it was possible to think any LESS of WTAM's 3-7pm chewfest (what exactly is the PURPOSE of this mish-mash show?)...until I caught the bloated host crowing "NEWWWZZZTIIIMMMEEE" like an insane person. I'm sure it's his way of "mocking" those who've attacked Schwab for doing the crazed-call for so long.

Well, CC, is this the type of talent you want representing your organization on-air? He carries on petty fights (for WHAT reason, little boy?) with his ex-gal host, his traffic guy, the PM sports host, and DJs from other CC channels down the hall. Someone, please, put him out of OUR misery and shut his always-full piehole.

Its seems like Rover stopped trying 6 months ago. He has made no effort to improve his show. The dare dieter crap was old a long time ago. If a person can make you dumber for listening then Dieter is that person. The crew has no chemistry. I'm willing to bet they don't even show prep. Rover probably tells them was point of view to take on a subject. Duji used to be ok but lately she's an annoying little you know what. What purpose does Johathon, Jazzy Jim and Dumb serve? I really hope CBS gets rid of him.

btw-- maxwell # 1 men 18-34. # 1 men 18-49 and # 3 men 25-54. He plays 1-2 songs an hour. When you take into account that there is no hourly sports/news... and a lighter music clock spot load-- he is talking more than most talkers, and doing well.